Capital punishment has existed in the United States before it became a country. As of 2021, capital punishment is legal in 27 out of 50 states. The federal government and the United States military have capital punishment.
The United States is the only Western country that has capital punishment.
History
Colonial America
Virginia
Before the United States became an independent country, it was a colony of the British Empire. The first known death sentence in colonial America happened in 1608. Captain George Kendall was executed by firing squad at the Jamestown colony after being accused of spying for the Spanish government.
In colonial America, people could be executed for many things. In the Jamestown colony, the first set of rules and punishments the colony's Lieutenant Governor wrote was very strict. There were 48 different capital crimes (crimes that were punishable by death). They included: Picking flowers from a neighbor's garden Criticizing the British government (for the third time) Blasphemy (for the third time) Trading with Native Americans (for the first time) Leaving the colony (for the third time) Stealing food because of hunger (for the third time)
When some colonists decided they did not like these strict rules, they ran away from the colony to live with nearby Native Americans. They were brought back to the colony, tortured, and executed.
The Thirteen Colonies
Each of the Thirteen Colonies came up with its own death penalty laws. For example, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was mostly Puritan, laws were harsh. Under its first capital punishment laws, which were effective from 1636-1647, people were executed for sodomy, adultery, witchcraft, blasphemy, bestiality, assault, rape, statutory rape, perjury in a capital trial, and murder. Later, the colony continued to execute people for witchcraft, including 20 people during the Salem Witch Trials. They also executed people for being Quakers and pirates.
Under the New York colony's Duke's Laws of 1665, a person could be executed for "denial of the one true God" or for hitting their mother or father.
Some colonies were not as strict. For example, the New Jersey colony had no death penalty, and in the Pennsylvania colony only murder and treason were capital crimes.
Revolutionary War era
By 1776, most of the colonies had similar laws about the death penalty. In most colonies, the capital crimes were arson, piracy, treason, murder, sodomy, burglary, robbery, rape, stealing horses, slave rebellion, and counterfeiting (making fake money). Usually, people sentenced to death were hanged.
During the American Revolutionary War, British Major John André was hanged by the Continental Army on October 2, 1780. He was convicted of spying and helping Benedict Arnold.
Slaves
The first slaves were brought to the Jamestown colony in 1619. Slavery was legal in the United States for the next 246 years, until the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution made it illegal in 1865. Until that time, slaves had no rights.
Slaves could be punished or tortured for any reason, or for no reason at all. Slaves who tried to escape or rebel were often tortured and executed where other slaves could see, to warn them not to do the same thing.
For example, in 1755, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a slave named Mark was accused of poisoning his "master." He was executed, then hung in chains at Boston Harbor so his body would rot. This was supposed to remind other slaves not to rebel every time they passed Mark's body. Twenty years later, when Paul Revere made his "Midnight Ride," Mark's skeleton was still hanging in chains at Boston Harbor.
During the 1700s, in the Southern colonies, an unknown number of slaves were executed, sometimes for things like hitting another slave, "fussing," or "sassing" a white person. Laws in the Southern colonies were passed allowing cruel and unusual punishments as well as capital punishment for slaves.
Reforms
In the late 1700s, activists like Benjamin Rush began to argue that the death penalty should not be used. Between 1794 and 1815, eight states passed laws that made fewer crimes punishable by death. However, many southern states made more crimes punishable by death, especially for slaves.
Major reforms started to happen between 1833 and 1853. At that time, many executions were public events. By 1849, fifteen states had switched to private hangings.
Abolition
In 1846, Michigan became the first state to abolish the death penalty, just after it entered the United States.